By Mark Owen - © 2010
Chapter 10 - If the light be darkness
'A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to
religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a
ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand,
they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the
gods on his side.' - Aristotle, Politics.
The Templars seem to have been star-crossed from the beginning. They suffered not only at the hands of the Muslims but also at the hands of their fellow-Christians. The Knights Templar, otherwise known as the Red Cross Knights (and other names), was a military order founded by Baldwin 2nd, King of Jerusalem, in 1118 CE, which established itself in England in 1185 CE. They took vows of obedience to a Grand Master, and also bound themselves to purity of life, mutual assistance, and to fight against the infidel. By the year 1250 the Templars had added to their material holdings to such a degree that they were said to own more than 8,000 buildings across Europe, from Denmark in the north to Spain in the south. But trouble was looming; in France from 1287 onwards Philip 4th set out to curtail their power. The Templars were the chief financiers and money-lenders of medieval Europe and had even assisted Philip, but the king acted with duplicity as he coveted their wealth for himself and he eventually turned on them. As a result of Philip's actions the trial of the Templars stands in history as an outrageous miscarriage of justice.
Informers in Philip's pay reported to the Inquisition that the Templars had preached heresy and were, in fact, secret Muslims. There had long been rumours of dark doings in Templar ceremonies and some alleged the knights were in league with the Devil. It was easy to play on these beliefs and accuse the knights of such heinous acts as worshipping idols, spitting on the crucifix and engaging in 'unnatural crimes,' especially sodomy, 'obligatory' at that!
In October 1307 the Grand Master, Jaques de Molay, and sixty brethren were arrested in Paris. They were all put to torture to extract confessions of guilt and thirty-six of their number died under torture in the first attack on the Order. Many of the Templars were elderly men, easily coerced into false confessions, and over 120 confessed to spitting on the crucifix at their reception, a ludicrous suggestion. Other prisoners confessed to all charges levelled against them. A worse turn of events was the public confession by the Grand Master himself, set forth in a letter on 25 October, admitting to spitting on the cross and denying the Christ-god.
Templars in other countries were also seized and tortured. Pope Clement 5th issued a bull calling on monarchs everywhere to arrest the Templars within their borders. The Pope then set up a commission to inquire further into the Order. However, fairness was not the aim; in the end the Pope sided with Philip, upon whom he was dependent to a great degree, and many Templars were judged guilty of heresy, tortured, and condemned to be burnt. The Pope eventually abolished the Order and most of the Templars' possessions were transferred to the Knights of the Order of St John.
In our own time people claiming to be the successors of the Order have launched legal action in Spain, seeking compensation for lost properties. Members of the Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ want to be recompensed for the vast portfolio of businesses and properties seized upon the disbanding of the Order. It is estimated that between 8,000 and 9,000 entities were involved in the seizure.
Contemplating the fate of the Templars we are reminded of some of the words ascribed to Jesus: 'Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.' (Matthew 5:9). What an enormous distance now separated the Church from the one upon which it was supposedly founded.
The Templars were not the only ones to suffer for stepping out of line. Nor were they alone in being accused of Satanism. The Cathari, a Christian group which flourished in Italy, Germany and southern France around the 12th century, suffered fierce persecution at the hands of the Roman Church, especially the branch of the sect known as the Albigenses and a separate dissident group, the Waldenses. The Church accused these humble Christians of being 'sacrificers of children' and claimed that, like witches, they flew through the air to their meetings!
The Albigensians came within the orbit of Count Raymond 6th, Earl of Toulouse, and both the Earl and the King of France tolerated their presence until the 3rd Lateran Council (1179). The Council proclaimed a holy crusade against all dissenters, especially the Albigenses and the Waldenses, and in 1181 actions were launched against them. For a time both the Earl and the King equivocated and sought to avoid stirring up strife among the people but the Pope, Innocent 3rd, was insistent that the 'heresy' should be rooted out. Then, in 1208, Peter of Castelnau, the Papal Legate, was murdered. This action was greeted with horror by many people, who believed Count Raymond was responsible; now the Pope had the ammunition he needed to insist on action being taken against the heretics.
Soon an army was being raised against the Albigenses, headed by Simon de Montfort, a Catholic zealot. The dissidents, peaceful and useful citizens, who numbered many hundreds of thousands scattered through numerous towns and villages, were destined to suffer appallingly for years to come. Among the sufferers were thousands of children; even they were not spared. Large numbers of people who escaped the battle sword were tortured and burnt at the stake, the authorities not hesitating to subject children to this horrible death along with their parents. This incident propelled moves within the Church to set up a formal mechanism to suppress heresy, thus giving birth to that dark institution of vicious oppression known as the Holy [sic] Inquisition.
This crusade is memorable for a famous incident. The story goes that when the first city, Beziers, was taken, the Papal Legate was asked whether the Catholics should be spared the sword. However, the official feared that many heretics would feign allegiance to the Church and thus escape punishment. He therefore commanded: 'Kill them all [i.e. everyone in the city], for God knows his own.' It is quite possible the story is apocryphal but its intent was certainly carried out with frightening ferocity by the good churchmen.
Louis 8th (1223-26), and his successor, Louis 9th, a deeply religious man, continued to wage war against the Albigenses. Horrors abounded. In 1211 the castle of Cabaret fell to the papal hordes and the lady of the castle was buried alive in a pit, covered with stones. In 1229 the Treaty of Paris was drawn up whereby Raymond submitted his people to the papal yoke and swore allegiance to Rome. But before his submission was fully accepted he was stripped naked and whipped, when he was 'so grievously torn by the stripes that he could not go out by the same place through which he entered.' Most of those who escaped the sword were afterwards condemned to either death or penal servitude by the Inquisition and by the end of the 13th century the name of their movement had been effectively wiped out by the Catholic forces. Once again I pause to remind my readers that we are following here the story of the Church founded upon the life of Jesus of Nazareth; well, it is easy to lose sight of this fact when we read of these appalling atrocities. And, certainly, if Jesus of Nazareth had come back he would not recognize this discreditable body that had purloined his name and sullied the memory of his humble life.
The Waldenses were a less radical body, followers of Peter Waldo of Lyons. They had no desire to separate from the Church, their chief offence being the naughty habit of conducting preachings without ecclesiastical sanction. They also read the Bible in their own language rather than Latin and generally sought to follow a simple and pious manner of life. When the Lateran Council was called in 1215 the Waldensian Christians were lumped together with the other heretical sects and excluded from the Church. They managed to maintain a precarious hold on freedom for a long period although persecuted on and off, until, with the coming of the 16th century Reformation they sided with the Protestants. In 1655 the Duke of Savoy and King Louis 14th launched a full-scale persecution against them and they suffered cruelly. Their children were seized and spirited away to be brought up as Catholics and the usual slaughter of men, women and children occurred.
Yet another dissenting group of sects were variously known as the Aposticals or Apostolic Brethren, or Order of the Apostles. They arose in France and Germany in the 12th century, and were of an ascetic frame of mind, although there were similar groups as far back as the 4th and 5th centuries in Asia Minor. St Bernard contended against them strenuously. Their tenets were almost the same as those afterwards held by Gerhard Segarelli or Sagarelli, a weaver of Parma. The latter, who lived towards the end of the 13th century, was rejected, for some cause or other, by the Franciscan order and gained his revenge by setting up his own church. And why not? This body, based on the same fraud as was Rome, had as much legitimacy as had the official Church.
Segarelli was most keen on meditation and as a result began a movement towards a simple way of life, as, he believed, was followed by the Apostles. About 1260 he appeared in the garb of an apostle, preaching and gathering a band of followers into a kind of free society, bound by no oath. They were opposed to the possession of property and to marriage, and lived in idleness, begging, but were attended by 'spiritual sisters'. At first there was no conflict with Church authorities but in time the mood changed and Segarelli was arrested by the Bishop of Parma. He was eventually released but the Pope decreed that communities not directly sanctioned by papal authority were to be abandoned. In 1290, with the accession of Nicholas 4th to the papal throne, a new outbreak of debate occurred, the Apostolic Brethren denouncing the Pope and the 'worldly' church. Segarelli and many of his followers were burnt as heretics at Parma in 1300.
In 1304 a new teacher arose in the person of Dolcino, of Novara, who appeared in Upper Italy with thousands of followers. He, too, was opposed to the Pope. A disciple of Segarelli, he went further, giving himself out after the latter's death as an angel of God, a sort of messianic figure. In this respect he prefigured many of modern self-appointed prophets who claim they are the Messiah, e.g. Wayne Bent (aka Michael Trevessar) whose messianic reign, cut short by a jail term, was confined to a small site in the American wilderness known as Strong City.
Three times Dolcino fell into the hands of the Inquisition and each time recanted. A crusade was preached against the sect in 1305 and after defending themselves gallantly on Mount Zebello against the Bishop and his army [sic], famine overtook the group and the papal forces seized them. The accounts say that he and his wife, Margaretha, were publicly torn to pieces with red-hot pincers by the good Roman Christians, the torture being drawn out over a whole day. The pieces of mangled body were then cast into the flames. Remnants of the Apostolicals persisted in Lombardy and the south of France until 1368. Other accounts mention their influence in Spain and Germany, up until the beginning of the 15th century.
The barbarities perpetrated against the Waldensians led to a call by Oliver Cromwell for the Protestant powers of Europe to execute vengeance on their persecutors. This is the same Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan Christian, who perpetrated awful acts against Irish Catholics. For, while the Catholics were persecuting Protestants and other dissidents in Europe the rival faiths clashed head to head in Ireland, with a most unhappy outcome for that land. The 16th and 17th centuries saw an increasing number of English and Scottish Protestant settlers moving into Ireland, especially in the north. Sir Richard Grenville led an English army against the Irish in the mid-16th century and distinguished himself for the viciousness of the campaign and the cruelties he unleashed upon the native population.
In 1641 Ireland saw a Catholic Rebellion. As to the character of this revolt, as with almost every aspect of Irish history, the truth is hard to ascertain. Protestants forever accuse Catholics of barbarous behaviour and Catholics reciprocate. It was claimed by the Protestants that this rebellion opened with wholesale massacres, followed by nine years of turmoil and bloodshed and that in the end Protestantism was almost extinguished in the land.
It was into this situation that Oliver Cromwell stepped, the tone of his invasion being set in a speech he made upon landing with his troops in Dublin in 1649. His purpose, he said, was, 'the great work against the barbarous and bloodthirsty Irish, and all their adherents and confederates.' A decisive battle took place at Drogheda, notable for the barbarities inflicted by Cromwell's troops on the townspeople. Many of the 3,000 citizens had sought refuge in St Peter's Church; this was set on fire on Cromwell's orders. Cromwell later wrote: 'Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the Town; and I think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men.' Even priests were hunted down. 'Their friars were knocked on the head promiscuously,' were Cromwell's own exultant words. Indeed it was expressly reported that not only all officers but all priests taken captive were killed. What is not so certain is whether Cromwell ordered the slaughter of women and children in the town. This is disputed but they were slaughtered, on whose orders is not clear. However, his soldiers did use captured Irish children as human shields.
Cromwell's exultant comments following this victory are typical of this good Christian: 'I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands in so much innocent blood.' Whatever the exaggerations of partisan Catholics, Drogheda was a fearful criminal action perpetrated by the Puritans. It was to be repeated again at Wexford, a south-eastern seaport. Again there was mass slaughter, 2000 or more dying, included priests. The Catholic writers tell of a body of women and children taking refuge alongside a cross and being deliberately slaughtered. Cromwell was unrelenting in his murderous push. All officers who surrendered were summarily executed on his orders, either shot or hanged, as also were many Catholic priests and monks and the Bishops of Ross and Broghill. There is even a possibility that torture was used in some cases.
The Cromwellian massacres set the tone for Anglo-Irish relations thereafter. In 1690 the Battle of the Boyne saw William of Orange victorious and the Protestant cause further advanced. Arthur Young, an English agronomist, and an unbiassed observer of the situation in this as in several other countries, wrote in 1780:
The domineering aristocracy of five hundred thousand Protestants feel the sweets of having two million [Catholic] slaves . . . A landlord in Ireland can scarcely invent an order which a servant, a labourer, or cottier dares refuse to execute. Nothing satisfied him but an unlimited submission. Disrespect or anything tending towards sauciness he may punish with his cane or horsewhip with the most perfect security; a poor man would have his bones broken if he dared lift a hand in his own defence. Landlords of consequence have assured me that many of these cottiers would think themselves honoured by having their wives or daughters sent for to the bed of their master; a mark of slavery which proves the oppression under which such people live.
By the end of the 18th century the country was in a continual state of war. Now one group, Protestant, arose to avenge some supposed wrong, then the other, Catholic, did likewise. Two of the many 'militias' are of particular note for their cruelties. The Carders aimed to stop peasants paying the forced tithe to the Anglican Church, the tithe being an immoral imposition akin to the imposition of churches today on society at large, who enjoy tax-free incomes and exemption from property imposts in many communities. The Carders punished recalcitrants by combing their naked backs with steel carding-combs, drawing blood. The Threshers had a similar aim but flogged those who upset them.
In 1798 there was a Catholic uprising and the English sent in the militia to aid the Orangemen, which intensified the struggle. In 1800 the Act of Union established Ireland as a Province of England, adding further fuel to the fires of Catholic bitterness. There was another Catholic uprising in 1803 and in 1841 there was a huge massacre of Protestants by Catholics who had been dispossessed from the land by the settlers. Between 2,000 and 3,000 died in a bloody revolt. And as we know all too well the murders and barbarities continued into quite recent times.
Meanwhile, on the Continent, the Catholic Church battled against dissenters while the papal feuds were continuing through the years much as they ever had. Back in the 15th century Pope John 23rd was accused by the Council of Constance (1414-1418) of poisoning his predecessor and bribing his way into office. The Council investigated the Pope and charged him with atheism [sic], adultery and incest! It removed him from office. Later the Catholic Church, in order to play down the scandal, described John 23rd as an 'antipope'. Thereafter no prelate would accept the vacated title of John 23rd until Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli did so in 1958.
A brothel was run by Pope Sixtus 4th. He founded this institution in the year 1471 and it was reportedly well equipped and quite large in extent. The ladies who worked as prostitutes in the papal establishment are said to have paid His Holiness some 20,000 ducats per year as protection money. Doubtless such a sum of money would have aided greatly the work of proclaiming the Gospel to sinners. But then in our own time churches of many persuasions in Britain happily receive grants from the national lottery and, as I have already mentioned, enjoy tax-free status in several countries. At the time of the Council of Constance, a contemporary chronicler, Gebhard Dacher, reported that as well as 18,000 priests attending this event there were 83 wine merchants, 346 clowns, jugglers and other entertainers and no less than 700 prostitutes. Another historian placed the figure for prostitutes at 1500!
But for profligacy and for evil personified it is hard to go past Pope Alexander 6th, otherwise known as Rodrigo Borgia (Spanish: Borja). Rodrigo was one of the best known and most notorious members of that infamous family. Not only did he have sexual relations such that no cardinal or pope should engage in but under his reign nepotism flourished in the Vatican, with cardinals being required to purchase their appointments and indeed, many murders occurring, the estates of the murdered ones (some of them cardinals) passing into Borgia hands. Rodrigo Borgia was Cardinal of Valencia, Spain, when he was elected Pope, with some degree of assistance from well-placed promises and favours dispensed. His crowning took place on 26 August 1492.
The two other well-known members of the family were his son Cesare and his daughter Lucrezia, both 'illegitimate,' and not the only offspring he fathered! Not that this seemed to bother Pope Alexander, who for a long period openly kept his latest mistress Julia Farnese (Cesare and Lucrezia were by an earlier liaison) at the Vatican and who made no effort to disown his children. Indeed, one of the first somewhat scandalous acts of the new Pope was to lease the palace of Santa Maria, Portico, in which he set up (at the expense of church funds) his then 12-year-old daughter Lucrezia. This palace was alongside the Church of St Peter's and was connected to that church by a secret underground passageway. A further secret way led from the church to the Vatican and to the Pope's own private apartments.
Although the granting of ecclesiastical office in return for payment was not unknown in the Vatican, such activity was to reach new heights under Alexander. One of the first of many transactions involved an agent from Mantua approaching the papal court seeking an appointment as cardinal for his brother Sigismondo. He was politely informed that 'Madonna Lucrezia was excessively fond of pearls.' And this same venal Pope was the one who introduced into the Church the notorious Index of prohibited books. (To be fair to him, It must be added that he was one of the few Spanish prelates who refused to have anything to do with the Inquisition in his home country.)
One observer of life in the Vatican, Ferrante of Aragon, wrote to the King of Spain:
The new Pope leads a life which is a public scandal, without having regard for the position which he occupies. He cares for nothing other than to advance the fortunes of his children by fair means or foul. Rome is overrun with soldiers. They are more numerous than the priests. As for the Cardinals, they are either terrorized into silence or driven like della Rovere [a candidate for the Papal office] out of Rome.
12 June 1493, was set down as the day for Lucrezia's wedding (but the first of three), a date decided upon after consulting with astrologers! It was a strange way for the Head of Western Christendom to seek guidance, but not more strange than the fact that this same Head was officiating at the wedding of his own 13-year-old daughter! Thereafter the family settled down somewhat, enjoying such spectacles as bullfights staged in public squares (which Lucrezia adored) and entertainments that went on right through the night, in which Cesare and Lucrezia pleased their father with their 'lascivious' dancing. During this period there were veiled hints that the Pope received in his chambers a number of young girls, brought there by his sons, and smuggled into the Vatican disguised as pages.
There was a curious episode when Alexander moved in 1501 to legitimize a mysterious child who had appeared on the scene, known as the Infante Romano, a 3-year-old boy. A Papal Bull decreed that 'the noble Giovanni de Borgia, natural son of the Duke Valentinois [Cesare] and of a Roman spinster, should by special apostolic authority be made legitimate.' The Pope then issued a 2nd secret Bull declaring that 'the aforesaid Duke was not responsible for the defect in the child's legitimacy, and though in the future the said Giovanni Borgia might be described in deeds and documents as the son of the Duke of Valentinois, this was in no way to prejudice his rights, he being in fact the child not of the Duke, but of himself, Pope Alexander 6th, and of the same Roman spinster.' These documents are in the official records of the Church and it is clear from what is written that Alexander had not given up his philandering.
In time Cesare began asserting himself. For a while he held the office of Cardinal but tired of this. He was a man of action and wanted to go into battle to win lands and possessions. Much more fun than chanting masses! Like his father Cesare was a womanizer and eventually fell victim to syphilis, his face showing the telltale marks of passion. Cesare's unbridled ambitions frightened his father but he let him have his head. And as Cesare went onto the field with his hired mercenaries, it was with the knowledge that their pay and provisioning had been wrung from many unwilling sources, not least from estates confiscated after cardinals or bishops or others succumbed mysteriously to death. In all this the Pope acquiesced and even lent a hand. As the years passed there were more deaths, there was the convenient divorce of Lucrezia, engineered by her father (during which it was solemnly asserted that the lady was virgo intacta), there were more unwed children, one, a son, to Lucrezia. There were festivals held in which those taking part staged 'obscene' masques, much to the amusement of the Pope and his daughter who looked on. Then there was the scandal of prisoners [sic] in the papal fortress of St Angelo being slowly murdered via poison introduced into their food. During one of the numerous blood-lettings visitors to Rome reported seeing on one day as many as 20 corpses hanging from the gallows on St Angelo Bridge.
And then there was Lucrezia's second wedding ceremony, during which bishops and cardinals drew swords and battled together, almost wounding the Pope in the mêlée. In any event Lucrezia and her new husband had already shared a bed long before that ceremony. But this marriage was not to last much longer than the first. Lucrezia's second husband, Don Alfonso of Aragon, whom she at least loved (unlike her first) was struck down by an assailant in the pay of her brother Cesare. It was around this time that a particularly notorious evening's entertainment took place - on the night of All Hallows Eve, 1501 - when the Pope and Lucrezia attended a banquet in Cesare's apartments. To this were invited 50 prostitutes, described by one observer as 'the lowest in Rome'. After the meal the women entertained all present (including His Holiness) with 'singing and dancing of a licentious character,' gradually removing items of clothing until in the end they were all fully nude.
Among the entertainments that night was a dance called the Ballet of the Chestnuts. As the Pope sat upon his throne he threw chestnuts into the mass of naked women on the floor. Each had to hold aloft a lighted candelabra as she tried to catch chestnuts. Prizes were given for the best performances. Thereafter Cesare's lieutenants enjoyed sex with the women as the Pope and Lucrezia looked on. It is even suggested that Lucrezia participated in the Ballet as it is also suggested that Lucrezia and Cesare had sexual relations with one another and had done so before, the mysterious child Giovanni being the result of such an incestuous union.
In the last months of his reign Alexander lived up to the ghastly reputation of the Borgias as poisoners. So great was the fear of falling victim to the family's murderous intrigues that many of Rome's cardinals found excuses to absent themselves from the city. One who stayed, an Orsini, celebrated Mass before the Pope on one occasion, then just two days later he was arrested and thrown into the dungeons of St Angelo, the papal prison. There he was poisoned off. Even as the Pope, some weeks later lay dying (said to be of natural causes . . . well maybe . . .) Cesare's men forced their way into the papal chambers and demanded of the chamberlain the key to the treasury.
